Frederick Locke, MD, on Further CAR T Research

"We had a workshop where we got all the different sponsors and stakeholders together and sort of talked about some of these issues with the overreach or the redundancy of some of these issues with starting up cell therapies, and I think there's still lots of work to be done.”

The 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting was held both virtually and in Chicago, Illinois, on June 3-7, 2022. One focus of the meeting was chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, their current impact in different cancers, and further research that remains to be done to improve them.

During the meeting, Melissa Alsina, MD, gave a talk on novel CAR therapies, targets, and approaches in multiple myeloma at ASCO focused on idecabtagenevicleucel (ide-cel) and some investigative therapies. Alsina is an associate professor of medicine at the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and head of the Multiple Myeloma Transplant Program at Moffitt Cancer Center.

CGTLive spoke with Frederick Locke, MD, to gain additional perspective on CAR T-cell therapies in the field. Locke serves as the vice-chair of the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy at Moffitt. He discussed managing toxicities and the potential of outpatient administration in the future. He also commented on the need to improve the process of starting cell therapies in centers.

REFERENCE

Alsina M. The road not yet taken: Novel CARS and newer horizons. Presented at: 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, June 3-7, 2022.